Last updated at 13:22, Friday, 14 January 2011

A POPULAR headteacher is retiring after serving a successful Furness secondary school for 30 years.

Eugene Tumelty, the head of St Bernard’s Catholic High School, will leave at the end of the academic year, in July.

Mr Tumelty joined the Barrow school as head of English in 1981.

He became a deputy head in the early 1990s, before becoming the head almost 12 years ago. Under his leadership the over-subscribed school, in Rating Lane, has held specialist science status since 2002 and has achieved good GCSE result performances.

Mr Tumelty, who is originally from Northern Ireland, will be 60 in the summer.

He said he will take many happy memories of his time at the school.

Mr Tumelty said: “I came to St Bernard’s back in 1981 with the intention of only staying for two years, but such is the life of Barrow and the way Barrow draws you in that my wife and I decided to stay and 30 years later I’m still here.”

Mr Tumelty is married to Patricia Tumelty, the headteacher of St Pius X Catholic Primary School, in Barrow.

He said: “Sixty is the normal age of retirement from teaching.

“It is the appropriate time to do lots of new challenges and to move on to what I describe as phase three. There are too many golf courses in the world and too many books to be read and at the moment I don’t have time enough to do either.”

The post of St Bernard’s headteacher is being advertised.

First published at 13:12, Friday, 14 January 2011
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk